I am a gamer from way back when I built my first 486/dx166. That might age me but I have seen the good and bad of video game lifestyle and I made it through.
For me, it is kinda like weed. If you have too much of it during your formative years or teenage years when you are putting in the hard work to figure out how to be a human, it can do permanent social damage that takes a lot to undo. This study with its tight sample of only 17-19 years must have been looking to uncover something specific.
Anyhow, online social may be the path of least resistance when it comes to social interaction but there are benefits. Additionally, introverted sociopaths might seek refuge instead of simple entertainment and gaming competition.
I still love gaming and talk with so many people I gamed with 20 years ago. It is up to me to get off my ass and live life and not think it can be done in front of a screen. I hope everyone comes to this conclusion for themselves or we will have a bunch of this guy.....
I am a gamer from WAAAY back when I built my first Z80 (that's a hopped up 8080 from Zilog). I know that might age me a little bit... :-p
I would say that social media has changed everything, but it had all changed before that. Gas prices were going up, people were driving less and going out less.
So, can you compare just ok friendships with real people, to great conversations with great people that are only online? I don't know. As an introvert, i find it worlds better.
Imagine never getting to talk about parts of your life because it was either considered weird or just was way over your real-life friend's heads? Online you can find groups of people that are just as geeky, or just as... almost anything as you are.
Like Zeke above, i consider it my responsibility to keep things balanced.
Truth be told, I loaded tapes into a vic20 and coded command line games in basic but I figured you can only go back so far without sounding like "walked 10 miles to school in the blinding snow....uphill both ways"
;)